The following homily of Pope Francis from the Vatican News website us very interesting regarding praying for vocations to religious life and priesthood - the Pope says that Jesus continues to call young people but unless we empty our hearts we cannot hear and respond to His call.
In his homily on Monday morning,
3 March, Pope Francis reflected on the day's Gospel from St. Mark (10:17-27),
in which the evangelist recounts Jesus' calling of the rich young man. “It is a
story we have heard many times”, Pope Francis said. The man ran up to Jesus
“and knelt before him”. And he does so “before a great crowd”, because “he
greatly desired to hear Jesus' words” and “something in his heart was prompting
him”. Thus, “kneeling before him”, he asks him what he must do in order to
inherit eternal life. “It was the Holy Spirit” who was moving the heart of this
man, the Pope said. Indeed, he was “a good man, for he observed the
commandments from his youth”. However, “for him, being good did not suffice: he
wanted more! The Holy Spirit was urging him on”.
“Jesus fixed his gaze upon him,
happy to hear these things”, the Pope said. So much so that “the Gospel tells
us that he loved him”. Therefore, “Jesus also sensed his enthusiasm. And this
is what he proposed: sell what you have and come with me to preach the
Gospel!”. However, the evangelist tells us that “at that saying his countenance
fell, and he went away sorrowful”.
This good man “had come with hope
and with joy to see Jesus; he asked his question; he listened to Jesus' words;
and he made his decision: to go away”. Thus “the joy that moved him, the joy of
the Holy Spirit, was turned into sadness”. Indeed, Mark says that “he went away
sorrowful; for he had great possessions”.
The problem was that “his
restless heart”, which the Holy Spirit was prompting “to draw near to Jesus and
to follow him, was a heart that was full”. Yet “he did not have the courage to
empty it” and instead, “he chose money!”. He had a “a heart filled with money”,
the Pope said. His was “honest money” but “his heart was imprisoned by it, he
was attached to money and he didn't have the freedom to choose”. Therefore, in
the end, “money chose for him”.
The Pope continued to reflect on
the question of vocation. And his thoughts turned to young people who “feel in
their hearts this call to draw near to Jesus; who are enthusiastic, who are not
afraid go to Jesus, who are not embarrassed to kneel before him”. Those who
like the rich young man, “give a sign of public witness to their faith in Jesus
Christ”.
Pope Francis said that there are
many young people today who feel this call. But “when their hearts are filled
with something else, and because they are not courageous enough to empty them,
they turn back”. And thus “their joy is turned to sadness”. How many young
people there are, he said, who possess that joy of which St Peter speaks in his
first Letter (1:3-9): “Rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy, as you obtain
the goal of your faith”. Truly, he said, these young people are “many, but
there is something standing in their way stopping them”.
“When we ask the Lord to send
vocations to proclaim the Gospel, he sends them”. And yet some say: “Father,
things in the world are going so badly: there are no vocations to be a sister,
there are no priestly vocations, we are going to end in ruin!”.
“There are many vocations”, the
Pope said. Yet, he asked, if they are so numerous “why do we need to ask the
Lord to send them?”. He replied: “We need to pray that the hearts of these
young people might be emptied: emptied of other interests, emptied of other loves,
that their hearts might become free”. This, he said is the true “prayer for
vocations: Lord, send us sisters, send us priests; defend them from the
idolatry of vanity, from the idolatry of pride, from the idolatry of power,
from the idolatry of money”. And, he explained, “our prayer helps to prepare
their hearts to closely follow the Lord”.
The Pope noted how many young
people there are today like the rich young man. And he asked: “what do we do
for them?”. The first thing to be done, he said, is to pray:
“Lord, help these
young people to be free and not to be not slaves” so that “they might have a
heart only for you”. In this way, he said, “the call of the Lord can come and
bear fruit”.
Pope Francis concluded his homily
by inviting those who were present to recite often “this prayer for vocations”,
with the awareness that “there are vocations”. It falls to us, he said, to pray
that “they might grow, that the Lord might enter into their hearts and give
them this 'unutterable and exalted joy' which every person has who closely
follows the Lord”.
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